Williamson wins his 2nd Ryder Memorial at Michaels’ Mercer Raceway Park worth $4018 with BRP mod tour. Lockhart goes flag to flag in 602 mods; Duncan wins first Mercer mod lite main.

By Jim Balentine
(Mercer,Pa)

On a rare Thursday night thunder special honoring the memory of Rick and his son Bob Ryder Michaels’ Mercer Raceway Park presented by Sunbelt rentals and Erme’s Distributing was able to complete just the 5th racing program of the season. “Money”Matt Williamson lived up to his name as he picked up the $4018 for winning the 4th annual Ryder memorial for the BRP modified tour. Youngster Logan Lockhart led flag to flag to win the non stop 5:53 20 lap feature for the top shelf trucking DIRT 602 crate sportsman modifieds; and Massillon Ohio’s Drew Duncan won the mod lite feature by .013.

35 big block modifieds graced the pit area to be whittled down to 24 cars for the 40 lap event.
Austin Eyler and Jeremy Paup would lead the field to green.
Paup would lead lap 1 with veteran Eric Gabany in a back up Rick Regalski car pressuring Paup for the lead however 2 yellows for a Brayden Beatty spin and Jeremiah Shingledecker flat tire would slow the action. On the restart Gabany would move into the lead and Lap 5 Colton Walters would move into in 2nd and Matt Williamson into 3rd from his 12th starting position.
After a spin on lap 6 for Jimmy Holden and Austin Eyler on the
Restart Williamson would take 2nd with Gabany still leading.9th starting Rex King Jr and 6th starting Brad Rapp would battle for 4th on lap 9 and on lap 12 Williamson would move into to the lead around Gabany with Walters back to 3rd. On lap 15 King Jr running 4th leading Rapp and Erick Rudolph. Williamson was increasing his lead by 2.411 seconds by lap 17 but a
Yellow for debris and a Gabany flat left front tire caused another caution. King jr. would move into 2nd with Rudolph 3rd.
Kyle fink who had come from the rear has moved into 6th by this point. By lap 26 Williamson had a 2 second lead with King and Rudolph trying to catch him.
On lap 36 Rudolph would get under king for 2nd but there would be another yellow for Gabany on lap 36. That would give Rudolph and King one more chance to get around Williamson, but Williamson kept the lead and won by 1.518 over Rudolph, and King. Kyle Fink after going to the pits made it back up to 4th and Colton Walters finished 5th.
Williamsson would say in victory lane, “This car was really good. I got really lucky in the first lap Garrett (Krummert) went into one and got a little tight and the middle kind of opened up so I got by him, Cooter and Eric (Gabany) all in one swoop and that was a great race. I don’t know if Eric was getting left front flat there before I passed somewhere that happened after but when I saw his left front flat on that restart I knew we weren’t going to have a repeat of the last one that we were down here for. You know the guys at home that worked on the car this week so many of them obviously couldn’t do it without the power under the hood and it’s just one a lot of racetrack so far so thankfully we’d come down here and race with it. Becker Brothers shocking pick a race box drywall VP integer shot side box spring year engines just a whole crew that makes it happen. I mean this time of year everybody’s tongues hanging out there there’s a lot of races you know you’re hoping for a lot of races and A lot of rain outs so I can’t thank my crew enough…there’s a sporadic crew every week that comes down and comes to help me in the shop. The whole crew that put on the Ryder race did such a good job and makes it easy to travel four hours to come down here to support a great event like this. It really gives back to the racers and we do appreciate it.” Rudolph would say “it seemed like I found a little something there and then I had to go. it just seemed like it didn’t really have anything left in the tank, but you know a podium finish with the BRP modified series is awesome. This race hasn’t really been that good to me but to finally get second here and have a consistent run here feels good!”

King would say “ It felt good. I mean I feel like I was second probably three times until those cautions..I don’t know I’m pretty sure we crossed the line there, but I didn’t know here or there but we we had a really good run and starting 9th and finishing third to Matt and Erick that’s nothing to hang your head about. I feel like I was maybe a little underpowered a little loose at the end of the race you know what I mean early on I wish I had a little bit bigger engine, but that’s on us. I have to give a huge shout out to the all the sponsors and everybody that came and support this event all the fans that are here on a Thursday night, it’s a rough night but really appreciate all that came out. I mean this is the biggest race in our area the Rick and Bob Ryder memorial is literally the biggest race in our area when it comes here and you know it’s great that Mercer put it on for us …the track was awesome. You know a little rough here and there it had some character but there was two lanes so I mean you look around from 6-8 years ago to where this places now, dude it’s awesome. I hope I hope they have us back five times here next year!”

The 4 heat races were won by Austin Eyler, Brad Rapp, Brayden Beatty and Eric Gabany. Macey Adamik won the b main and Dave Murdock won the dash. Ricky Richner was the winner of the Bicknell chassis.

After winning last year‘s season finale, young Logan Lockhart returned to Victory Lane Thursday night leading flag to flag and winning his second top shelf trucking dirt 602 crate sportsman modified feature of his career in the non stop 5:53 minute race. It would not be easy though as 21 time limited modified winner Eric Gabany who knows Mercer as good as anybody would hound him the entire race, looking for a spot to take the lead, trying the low side, trying the high side and even with the lapped cars getting in the way could not make it stick as Lockhart won by .360 over Gabany. Ryan Riffe would finished where he started in 3rd, Billy Adams fell two spots to 4th and Kyle Martell moved up one spot to fifth. A happy Logan would say “ I was trying to hold a clean enough run and I knew he (Gabany) would come through the field and I was paying attention to the big block race and where he was running so that sort of helped. The lapped traffic I knew it was going to be tough with Eric coming but I was able to get through the traffic and get it done.”

In the first mod light race of the season, it would come down to a matter of inches as Massillon, Ohio’s Drew Duncan would fend off Ohio hotshoe Carson Hubbard by a mere .013 to win his first career at Mercer. Luca Ledford was 3rd, with Logan Lewis and Teddy Williams rounding out the top 5. A happy Drew would say, “that was awesome!!! I thought he won it!! hilltop is my home track and You have to be just right out there and I’m not great out there but this was really fun! This is my first time out at this track. It was awesome. You guys did a great job on it. It’s much more flat that hilltop but the red clay there’s so much grip on it. I mean, that’s the fun part I could throw it in full speed go and it makes a really fun race. This is the first one of the year so this is a big one so I really appreciate you guys out here and everybody got me out the car so thank you very much! I wasn’t planning to come next Friday and then I drove on the track for the first time and this is a blast so I think I might have to make sure the car is good and come back and try to win as well.”

Michaels Mercer raceway will be back in action on a special Friday, August 21 featuring the 410 sprint cars along with the RUSH non-wing sprint cars, the Mark Marcucci tribute race for the Mod lites; the 270cc micro sprints and the Crown Vics.

Media Results for 8/13/2026 at Michaels Mercer Raceway – Mercer, PA

Dirt Big Block Modifieds 35 Entries
A Feature 1 40 Laps | 00:32:12.174

1. 6-Mat Williamson[12]; 2. 25-Erick Rudolph[11]; 3. 165-Rex King Jr[9]; 4. 17M-Kyle Fink[5]; 5. 18-Colton Walters[4]; 6. 777-Tyler Willard[7]; 7. 0055-Rob Kristyak[23]; 8. 11R-Brad Rapp[6]; 9. 45-Steve Feder[17]; 10. 61-Dave Murdick[13]; 11. 13-Rick Regalski Jr[18]; 12. 00K-Jackson Kristyak[21]; 13. 28-Jimmy Holden[16]; 14. 8M-Macey Adamik[22]; 15. 13X-Eric Gabany[3]; 16. 3K-Shawn Kozar[19]; 17. 60-Tom Holden[24]; 18. X-Jeremy Paup[1]; 19. 29-Garrett Krummert[10]; 20. 64-Rodney Beltz[20]; 21. 9-Cameron Miller[15]; 22. 5A-Austin Eyler[2]; 23. 37MD-Jeremiah Shingledecker[14]; 24. B4-Brayden Beatty[8]; 25. (DNS) 86R-Rob Curtis

B Feature 1 10 Laps | 00:24:11.000

1. 8M-Macey Adamik[2]; 2. 3K-Shawn Kozar[9]; 3. 0055-Rob Kristyak[13]; 4. 60-Tom Holden[11]; 5. 86R-Rob Curtis[3]; 6. 26-Karley Miller[10]; 7. 19-Len Bullis[12]; 8. 74-Kevin Green[14]; 9. 4-Brian Schaffer[7]; 10. 29*-Eric Beggs[8]; 11. 20P-Mike Kinney[1]; 12. 5C-Ayden Cipriano[4]; 13. 28H-Hayden Holden[5]; 14. 18W-Jeff Walters[6]; 15. (DNS) 777-Tyler Willard; 16. (DNS) 77-Preston Cope

Dash 1 8 Laps | 00:02:12.000

1. 61-Dave Murdick[1]; 2. 37MD-Jeremiah Shingledecker[4]; 3. 9-Cameron Miller[3]; 4. 28-Jimmy Holden[8]; 5. 45-Steve Feder[5]; 6. 13-Rick Regalski Jr[6]; 7. 64-Rodney Beltz[7]; 8. (DNS) 00K-Jackson Kristyak

Heat 1 8 Laps | 00:02:10.000

1. 5A-Austin Eyler[1]; 2. 17M-Kyle Fink[5]; 3. 29-Garrett Krummert[7]; 4. 61-Dave Murdick[2]; 5. 45-Steve Feder[4]; 6. 20P-Mike Kinney[9]; 7. 28H-Hayden Holden[6]; 8. 3K-Shawn Kozar[3]; 9. 0055-Rob Kristyak[8]

Heat 2 8 Laps

1. 11R-Brad Rapp[2]; 2. 6-Mat Williamson[3]; 3. 25-Erick Rudolph[6]; 4. 00K-Jackson Kristyak[1]; 5. 13-Rick Regalski Jr[5]; 6. 8M-Macey Adamik[8]; 7. 18W-Jeff Walters[4]; 8. 26-Karley Miller[7]; 9. 74-Kevin Green[9]

Heat 3 8 Laps | 00:06:23.000

1. B4-Brayden Beatty[1]; 2. X-Jeremy Paup[3]; 3. 777-Tyler Willard[8]; 4. 9-Cameron Miller[5]; 5. 64-Rodney Beltz[7]; 6. 86R-Rob Curtis[4]; 7. 4-Brian Schaffer[9]; 8. 60-Tom Holden[2]; 9. 77-Preston Cope[6]

Heat 4 8 Laps | 00:02:08.000

1. 13X-Eric Gabany[2]; 2. 165-Rex King Jr[4]; 3. 18-Colton Walters[1]; 4. 37MD-Jeremiah Shingledecker[3]; 5. 28-Jimmy Holden[5]; 6. 5C-Ayden Cipriano[7]; 7. 29*-Eric Beggs[8]; 8. 19-Len Bullis[6]

DIRT 602 Crate Sportsman Top Shelf Trucking 17 Entries
A Feature 1 20 Laps | 00:05:48.677

1. 58-Logen Lockhart[1]; 2. 3E-Eric Gabany[4]; 3. 21X-Ryan Riffe[3]; 4. 717-Bill Adams[2]; 5. 8-Kyle Martell[6]; 6. 29A-Anthony Antus[5]; 7. 7 11-Todd English[9]; 8. 12L-Patrick Lane[7]; 9. 7P-Caden Petry[10]; 10. 41-Brian Schaffer[8]; 11. 71-Gage Priester[13]; 12. 10S-Trevn Schaffer[11]; 13. 29-Cole Edwards[15]; 14. 04-Isaac Seippel[12]; 15. 12*-Troy Pinch[17]; 16. 93-Phil Kapcewich[16]; 17. (DNS) 51R-Thomas Rodgers

Heat 1 8 Laps | 00:06:31.433

1. 3E-Eric Gabany[2]; 2. 12L-Patrick Lane[1]; 3. 58-Logen Lockhart[6]; 4. 41-Brian Schaffer[7]; 5. 7 11-Todd English[8]; 6. 10S-Trevn Schaffer[5]; 7. 71-Gage Priester[4]; 8. 29-Cole Edwards[3]; 9. 12*-Troy Pinch[9]

Heat 2 8 Laps | 00:02:20.289

1. 717-Bill Adams[1]; 2. 8-Kyle Martell[2]; 3. 21X-Ryan Riffe[7]; 4. 29A-Anthony Antus[4]; 5. 7P-Caden Petry[3]; 6. 04-Isaac Seippel[8]; 7. 51R-Thomas Rodgers[5]; 8. 93-Phil Kapcewich[6]

Mod lites 13 Entries
A Feature 1 15 Laps | 00:15:44.555

1. 57-Drew Duncan[1]; 2. 11-Carson Hubbard[5]; 3. 98-Lucca Ledford[3]; 4. 22-Logan Lewis[6]; 5. 818-Teddy Williams II[4]; 6. 808-Drew Hannay[2]; 7. 22C-Derek Chismar[10]; 8. 8H-Jacob Isenhart[8]; 9. 14-Jacob Eakin[7]; 10. 41-Ken Downey[9]; 11. 74-Timothy Volzer[11]; 12. (DNS) 66-Mark Suchan; 13. (DNS) 88-Liam Vanelzen

Heat 1 8 Laps | 00:08:55.572

1. 57-Drew Duncan[2]; 2. 808-Drew Hannay[6]; 3. 98-Lucca Ledford[3]; 4. 14-Jacob Eakin[4]; 5. 41-Ken Downey[5]; 6. 74-Timothy Volzer[1]; 7. 88-Liam Vanelzen[7]

Heat 2 8 Laps | 00:02:25.154